Quote:
But how many of you have actually read books like The Wealth of Nations, Dante's Inferno, Hobbes' Leviathan, Descartes' Meditations of First Philosophy, or even the Bible?
I've read all of those, along with the other pair in the Divine Comedy (I did skip the begats in the Bible, I can't be bothered with record keeping).
Of other stuff mentioned in the thread
Les Mis - read full english version, original french kicked my ***.
War and Peace - Yup
Art of War - Yup
Book of Five Rings - Nope
Yossarian's post - about 50%
Summa Theologica - good chunks of it not everything
Epic of Gilgamesh - Yup
The Odyssey - Yup
The Song of Roland - Yup
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight - Yup
Oedipus the King - Yup
Antigone - Nope
The Iliad - Yup
Beowulf - Yup (Grendle as well)
Le Morte d'Arthur - Yup
The Once and Future King - Yup (Disliked it intensely)
The Canterbury Tales - Yup
The Prince - Yup (Please note - never read Machiavelli without reading his other works)
Tao Te Ching - Yup
Slaughterhouse Five - Nope
Left Hand of Darkness - Nope
The Canticles of Lebewitz - if this is supposed to be A Canticle for Leibewitz, yep, else, nope
everything by Heinlein - Most of it, Stranger From a Strange Land struck me the most
Card - Ender's Game gets a big thumbs up, Ender's Shadow not so much but still good, Speaker for the Dead and Xenocide I disliked, didn't read anything else in the series. Notably Card edited a fantastic collection of Sci-Fi, a sort of primer for people who want to get into the field (title: Masterpieces : the best science fiction of the century)
The Silmarillion - Yup
Shakespeare - Yup
Asimov's Foundation series - Yup
Tolkien's works - Yup
CS Lewis' works - Yup
Steinbeck - East of Eden, Of Mice and Men, Grapes of Wrath
Lord of the Flies - Yup
The Count of Monte Cristo - Nope
Catch-22 - Yup (Closing Time sucked)
Steppenwolf - Nope
Dragonflight - Nope
Other books I find to be especially important - either in being very good, important in the development of human history or both.
von Clausewitz - On War
Confucius - The Analects
Kuhn - Structure of Scientific Revolutions
Kant - Prolegomena to any Future Metaphysics, Critique of Pure Reason, Metaphysics of Morals, Critique of Practical Reason, Critique of Judgment
de Tocqueville - Democracy in America
Marx/Engels - The Communist Manifesto
Locke - An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
Hume - A Treatise of Human Nature, An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding, Dialogues concerning Natural Religion
Empiricus - Outlines of Pyrrhonism, Against the Mathematicians
Leibniz - Anything you can get translated
Whitehead/Russell - Principia Mathematica
Hegel - Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences
Darwin - The Origin of Species, Descent of Man
Diamond - Guns, Germs and Steel
Swift - A Modest Proposal
Wittgenstein - Philosophical Investigations, Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics
Hawking - A Brief History of Time
Greene - The Elegant Universe
Abbott - Flatland
Vidal - Messiah, Julian, Lincoln
Marquez - One Hundred Years of Solitude, Chronicle of a Death Fortold
Asimov - I, Robot
Herbert - Dune (the sequels and the prequels can burn - as can the Sting film)
Adams - Hitchhiker's Guide Trilogy (All 5.5 of it)
Durell - Alexandria Quartet
Huxley - Brave New World
Wells - Animal Farm, 1984
Brunner - Stand on Zanzibar, The Sheep Look Up
Benford/Brin - Heart of the Comet
Stevenson - Cryptonomicon, Snow Crash
Pratchett - The Truth, Thief of Time
Gaiman - Neverwhere
Bear - Darwin's Radio
D'ick (damn filter) - Do Androids Dream of Robot Sheep
Bradbury - Fahrenheit 451, The Martian Chronicles (I also feel he's the best short story writer out there)
Niven - Ringworld Series
Shaara (the elder) - The Killer Angels
Shaara (the younger) - The Last Full Measure, Gods and Generals
McCullough - Caeser, Caeser's Women
Rawls - Where the Red Fern Grows
Toole - A Confederacy of Dunces
Pressfield - Gates of Fire
I'm sure I've left out tons good ones, and (as you might guess) I like to read so anyone who has more stuff to add I'll be selfish and ask for suggestions.